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The NHS is increasingly feeling the strain

Another week brings another batch of anecdotal evidence of the mounting pressures across the health service.

Cancelled operations

A BBC investigation, through Freedom of Information requests, revealed tens of thousands of operations put off at short notice last year in England had not been recorded in official cancellation figures.

And because these had happened in the three days before the scheduled day, there was no guarantee they would be rescheduled within 28 days as there is with cancellations on the day of surgery.

Hospital chiefs acknowledge this is an area of concern and admit there is distress to patients if there is a postponement of planned surgery so close to the scheduled day.

But they blame the relentless rise in patient numbers, with emergency admissions having to take precedence over non-urgent surgery.

The dilemma is whether to leave more beds and operating-theatre time free for emergency cases or fill them close to capacity to get the required elective work done but risking inflicting last-minute cancellations on patients.

Bed occupation by patients fit enough to leave but who cannot get social care is another part of the problem.

Overstretched doctors

As well as a recruitment crisis making some hospitals unsafe, according to the college, the NHS was seriously underfunded, and its leadership called for a new plan to meet the country's health and social care needs.